Two Thousand Years
by sciathan file
Summary: An experimental Clemi fic that moves backwards through Umi and Clef's life together.
1. Chapter 1

**Two Thousand Years**

By Sciathan File

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Magic Knight Rayearth or the lyrics to Billy Joel's "Two Thousand Years." I am merely a poor, starving college student who wants to play with Clamp's lovely world for a while.

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"Time is relentless

Only true love perseveres

It's been a long time and now I'm with you

After two thousand years"

"Two Thousand Years" – Billy Joel

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**Chapter 1: Beginnings and Ends**

It was as if, since that moment, all of Cephiro held its breath.

An invisible tremor had rippled throughout the world touching land, tree, beast, and human being alike. They all spoke, in that moment, of a common sadness, a common loss, a common mourning.

A slow, sad song of parting.

And, for the first time since Shidou Hikaru had become the pillar of the world, an exquisitely rare event occurred…

The sky had turned the color of steel and it had begun to rain large, ponderous drops – the tears of Cephiro itself, grieving at its loss. Tears unseen since the deaths of Emeraude and Zagato.

Amidst the gray mist stood a lone figure, silently observed from a distance by two others. All three were silhouetted against the raging sky in a silent tableau.

The lone woman stood within the rain's grasp, seemingly apart of it and untouched by it all at once, arms outstretched before her, glancing up into the steely sky. It was difficult to tell whether she was welcoming the water or unsuccessfully warding it away.

The blue that colored her hair and her delicate robes seemed to have seeped into the air around her, coloring it with a quiet melancholy.

But, if she was crying, her own tears were indistinguishable from those of the sky.

"Umi-chan…" Her distant companion, a petite woman with long, red hair whispered. Her quiet words were carried away on the wind.

The other woman, who, until this moment, had merely watched as her blue robed friend contemplated the stormy sky, put her hand on Hikaru's slender shoulder.

They both knew Umi well. She was the most private of the three, but still someone who would always reach out when she needed them. For the time being she could merely look up at the rain and remain with her memories.

Memories of 2000 years.

2000 years was a very long time, but all of those years had been a gift. All of them had held something precious for him…and her as well.

Both her companions understood this and so, merely remained in close proximity, lending comfort through their nearness.

After a moment, Hikaru's companion, who until this moment had merely given her silent solace, thought it best to verbalize this fact.

"Umi-san will be alright. She understands."

Hikaru merely nodded, raising her own hand and putting it on top of Fuu's.

A thought occurred to Fuu as they stood there, watching Umi reach out to the rain…after almost 1,500 years spent in Cephiro, in these times they still returned to the language of their homeland.

…for an ephemeral moment she mused about those 1,500 years of living on by the force of their own powerful hearts. But she was also realistic. Cephiro was a land of will, not miracles. Immortality was no more attainable here than in their own world.

Time eventually catches everyone.

Will merely kept time at bay…but time always overcame even the strongest will.

After more than 2000 years of living by his own strong heart, time had finally caught the Master Mage of Cephiro.

The Knight of Fire and the Knight of Wind knew that, despite her many years together with her consort, Umi knew without a doubt that his long life had been good.

She would miss him, everyone knew without a doubt. She would miss him as if a part of her own soul had been irrevocably lost.

But she could also go on, using the strength of her own will…simply because that was what she needed to do. That was what Clef would have _wanted_ her to do.

Their worry, however, was not at this point for Umi herself.

She had become the public face of the death of the Master Mage.

The private face was still looking out of a window, not wanting to touch the tears Cephiro shed for her father. Not wanting to revel in them, celebrate his life, step out into the world.

Umi, content with her silent vigil, walked slowly towards her fellow Magic Knights.

Her eyes were red-rimmed and her robes sagged with the weight of her own element.

But her eyes were bright nonetheless, not hollow and dead. Clef did not want her to be that way. Clef would have hated causing her to become that way.

She knew that. Her daughter, Aria, did not.

Although she greatly resembled her father in both her peaceful, quiet demeanor, and love of books and learning, she did not understand his final wishes for her.

Aria, who had received both of her parents' power, had also received their stubbornness. It had long been predicted that, upon her father's death, she herself might succeed him. However, this is a point she refused to talk about, knowing what her advancement was contingent upon. Now that it had come to pass, she had seemingly lost her voice altogether.

Umi's daughter needed her. She did not have to be strong and not show her pain to the world. Umi merely had to assure her (just as she had assured Clef himself so many years before) that it was a different kind of strength reflected in feeling and sharing that pain.

It took the strongest heart to reach out to the tears and let oneself be baptized in them.

Drenched and dripping, their arms around Umi's shoulders, the three women made their way back to the castle.

Umi had made up her mind what to do about her daughter.

…Her stubborn, beautiful daughter, the product of a flash of lightning hitting the sea itself. Just as difficult as Clef had been…and she herself could be.

The three women made their way up to the room where Aria sat, gazing out upon the rain, but never really seeing it, only pausing to remove their sodden robes and to exchange them for dry garments.

Umi than proceeded into the room where her daughter had remained for the three days after the Cephiran equivalent of a funeral.

At the funeral Aria had not yet been this way and, although she was largely silent, she had done one small gesture to show her love for Clef and to honor his memory. She had cast a single elaborate spell, causing a winged heart to rise up into the sky, sparking and hissing and lovely.

Umi had thought at that moment she had understood that, although Clef was now gone, 2000 years was a very long time. There was nothing wrong in loving her father in that manner. But she had 2000 years of her own to live.

Clef had loved and he had _lived_ not merely in the sense where you breathe and sleep and eat, but in the grandest sense of the word.

_Life._

She did not see that life. She saw only its absence.

It was Umi's job to help her see her father in that light, as she had seen him and loved him in all of her many years at his side.

She entered the room, noticing the spell that normally guarded the door had been disarmed. Her daughter stood, merely looking out onto the rainy sky outside of the window with a hollow look in her eyes.

Nothing in the room had moved for almost an entire week. Her formal robes hung from her wardrobe, still crisp, neat, and untouched, and her magic staff, crowned by an angel lovingly clasping an infinite ring of gold, merely lay, disused, on the floor near the door.

Hikaru and Fuu sat down on the bed as Umi moved to Aria's side, pulling up another of the room's armchairs.

Tenderly, she ran her fingers through her daughter's long lavender hair, currently bereft of its usual heavy ornamentation. Aria leaned into to her mother's caress, burying her head in Umi's shoulder.

"He wouldn't want you like this."

The girl did not respond. Clef and her had that same stubborn silence when anything bothered them.

At times, she was painfully like him.

She buried her head deeper, losing herself in Umi's own long tresses. She had begun to sob silently.

"You and I are going to celebrate his life, so you will understand." She glanced briefly in Hikaru and Fuu's direction, "We all will."

She would weave her daughter a story…a story of 2000 years of his life…_their _life.

**End Chapter 1**

**A/N:** I am going to emphasize that this is a _non-linear narrative_, i.e. although I am starting with this, does not mean this scene will be the basis for the story. Yes, this is Clemi, but definitely not your standard Clemi fic. Basically, with this story I am going to do an experiment and move through time _backwards_ through a series of memories so that you will have to wonder how events got to the point they are not where they will go. That said, please no one kill me for this first part.

Also, I have taken some liberties with the life span and effects of will upon it in Cephiro…yeah for artistic license! Also, the characters may appear a bit OOC, but that is due to both the nature of the events unfolding and the fact that they have had a very long time to mature and grow. So, all that said, I'd like to thank you all for reading!


	2. Falling Apart at the Seams

**Chapter 2: Falling Apart at the Seams**

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Magic Knight Rayearth or the lyrics to Mindy Smith's "Raggedy Anne." I am merely a poor, starving college student who wants to play with Clamp's lovely world for a while.

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"When did I get so broken?

I wouldn't notice…

Everything important leaving me.

Falling apart at the seams.

All the busy people keep walking away

'Cause they can't see me… or anything…

Everyday it gets a little harder to believe in magic in people.

"Raggedy Anne" – Mindy Smith

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Ever since the day of her father's burial all she had been able to do was look out of the window at the steadily falling rain.

It was a grave kind of impotence that had struck her, a girl who was usually a whirling dynamo hidden just beneath a calm façade. Everyone, especially her Aunt Fuu, had told her that she was an exact combination of her parents in that way – wearing the Master Mage's calm expression outwardly and bristling with her mother's liquid personality underneath.

Aria was water with an electrical current running through her – she could be innocuous looking until someone tried to pour her into somewhere she did not desire to go. Many courtiers and councilmen, mistaking Umi and Clef's seemingly tranquil daughter for a good route to obtain the patronage of two of the most power figures in Cephiro, had felt her shock and sting.

Her calm face and the carefully spoken wit she had inherited from Clef, as well as her mother's sense of frank, brutal honesty would send small prickles of electrical currents running through them as she serenely told them where their place was and showed them precisely _who_ they were dealing with.

_She_ had no need to stand on the ceremony of her parentage. Aria had always done perfectly (and stubbornly) fine by herself.

But, as she looked out her window into the grey world, watching her mother in the distance holding her hands out to the cold and wet, as if gathering the prayers of the Cephiro to herself on behalf of her departed consort, Aria seemed to have lost the current that had flowed through her with her father.

Now she merely remained a puddle on the ground, made up of prayers and tears that her mother could not reach out to.

_And_, a hollow waif of a voice spoke within her, _Mother may reach all she wants… but she can never touch him again._

Something within her rose up and crushed that voice, a hidden vestige of electricity, still unaffected by the hollowness in her chest that seemed to be slowly engulfing her.

Unbidden, her mind turned to her mother and her father.

They were almost always amusing together in private, and throughout her childhood, she could remember moments where she simply could not resist laughing at their antics.

However, in public they were the picture of the leadership of Cephiro - stately, dressed within their intricately embroidered robes and ceremonial armor, with their incredibly serious expression - that same picture always made her want to burst out laughing.

(She could remember one time that she had done just that. Her father had looked so _angry_ and had lectured her on how much was at stake for Cephiro at such events.)

If only people could _see_ them when they deemed it safe to act _normal_.

Aria smiled slightly for the first time since her father died.

Anyone walking past their wing in the palace who had seen their resplendent public forms would definitely wonder if they had been given proper directions to the Master Mage's and Water Knight's wing.

Her aunts had once told her about her parents' first meeting and quite honestly, Aria did not see a marked difference in their behavior now.

Yes, her "dignified" mother sometimes still chased her "noble" father down the corridors, calling choice names at him (including "short" and "pervert!" which always received quite a violent reaction.)

Sometimes all she could do was stare at the two in wonderment as they passed by her at such a speed that it made her robes flutter around her.

_That_ was when she had erected the ward upon her room. In fact, it was the first act she had accomplished as she had reached the rank of _Ile_. She was, just as Aunt Fuu and Aunt Hikaru had always told her, a blend of both of her parents and so was her brand of magic.

She could feel her robes lift beneath her and both the oppositional forces combined within her. The golden angel on top of her space glinted brightly in the resultant flash.

The ward was perfectly in place.

She had giggled when she was finished, mostly because of the way her ward worked…it was just like her parents. It reacted when presented with the oppositional force…the water with the lightning and the lightning with the water.

Neither of them had been very happy when they had discovered how she had chosen to maintain her privacy and display her magical talents.

The memory made her smile briefly.

She looked at the door. The ward had been dismantled now because it only served as a reminder of someone who would never again pass through it.

The smile faded and she again turned back to the window, streaked and running with the rain.

Within the tiny room she was bounded in her very own nutshell and did not know how long she would go on counting herself a queen of infinite space.

A quieter memory came to her of a bright day alone with her father, walking along shore of the sea. It was evening and the wind was still. The greatest distraction was the bright starlight and the gleaming of Windam's floating mountain off in the distance.

It was simply her alone with her father, enjoying the solitude and quiet and mutual comfort of family.

His title and power had never mattered very much to Aria. She knew someone who represented something far more than the political figure that he was for the rest of Cephiro.

History would remember him at the Guru under the last pillar, the hero who had aided the Magic Knights, the Master Mage who had held Cephiro together in the wake of Emeraude's death, and the man who had caused controversy by stepping out of his traditional role as the advisor to the pillar and taking one of the Magic Knights as his consort.

She remembered, as she looked at the window, memories like this of walking along the shore of the Cephiran sea, watching Fyula and her own Firenza glide over the waves.

She had sat down next to him and they had sat in the star lit silence for a time.

"How was your favorite bunch of stodgy grey beards today?"

The "foolish idiots" was, of course, her father's favorite name for the Cephiran Council.

He sighed, watching Fyula in the distance.

"As foolish as usual." There was a lilt to his voice.

She had smiled then, as she always did when she heard him talk about his disdain for Cephiro's governing body.

But now she was older, wiser and it occurred to her (other than the fact that her father generally disliked noise, idiocy, and any overabundance of self-interest…all of which ran rampant within the council) that she did not know why exactly her father showed the level of distaste for Cephiro's government as he did.

She looked at him, as children always do when they find they do not know everything about everything, with a new perspective.

"Why is it that you and mother hate them so much?"

She had only meant to wonder it…not wonder it out loud. As if the action would erase the question, she clapped her hand over her mouth.

When they both thought that she wasn't listening she could hear them "discuss" the political happenings in Cephiro…actually it was more of her mother using choice words to describe some piece of legislation particular people were putting forth and her father nodding wearily, already having dealt with it in public that day.

So, in her own hindsight, bluntly posing the question to her father in such a manner was not an incredibly brilliant maneuver.

Instead of him becoming angry however, he smiled gently at her.

Suspiciously, she removed the hand that she had kept clamped over her mouth lest another ridiculous question follow the first.

Her father smiled all the larger.

"Don't let you mother see you acting so much like her…the _both_ of us will never hear the end of it!"

That caused her to raise her hand to her mouth again…this time to muffle the laughter that emerged from it.

But, while it did not entirely fade from view, the smile lost its bright luminescence to some extent.

"But in answer to your question…"

Aria could feel herself holding her breath for some ridiculous reason. Suddenly she found it hard to look at her father at all. Instead, she merely watched her sleek dragon Firenza circling gracefully around Fyula.

"The council seems to have a problem dismissing some of the traditions regarding the function of certain individuals within the Pillar's court."

Now, instead of being slightly awkward, Aria knew that she was in imminent peril of receiving a history lesson about exactly what these traditions were and how and why they had developed.

The last thing that she wanted to hear amidst all of this tranquility and starlight was a _long_ diatribe on Cephiran history…she could picture it now...he would cough into his hand and begin and end when he noticed her eyes had glazed over and she looked like death slightly warmed over. Perhaps then he might lecture her on the benefits of such knowledge and how she would do well to take it more seriously.

Sometimes he seemed to forget that he had more than 1000 years more time to take in all of this then she did.

She was faced with two equally dangerous paths…a long somnolent lecture or another direct question with unknown results. Taking a deep breath, she went with the latter option.

"But…what exactly does that have to do with you and why you both hate them?"

He looked thoughtful for a moment, a stood up, a mischievous smile playing at her lips.

Aria frowned severely, knowing that, as he always did when her mother asked such blunt questions, her father was merely avoiding answering them.

At this point, her mother might resort to fixing one of her frighteningly piercing looks at him…which sometimes led to her using one of her water spells on him.

Thus far the "look" had failed her and while the power between the Master Mage and a Legendary Magic Knight might be almost equal, a simple _Ile_ against the Guru was laughable.

He called Fyula back and, conceding defeat…at least until she could wheedle an answer from her mother to satiate her curiosity…she did likewise, allowing Firenza to do a final roll and dip into the ocean before recalling her.

Suddenly, he gave a nebulous answer to her question.

"Let's just say that you were our marriage contract."

He looked back and smiled at her.

All that she was able to do in response was widen her eyes. A "marriage contract" was a nonsensical phrase in Cephiro. "Marriage" (for that was the word her mother always used to refer to it, being another piece of the language of her homeland that she retained) was merely a private intimate union between two people.# By definition it needed no other contract or other outside force to validate it. People might not even know that you had taken a consort unless a person chose to make it public knowledge.

However, her father's reticence to even give her that ambiguous answer warned Aria that she would definitely not get a more specific answer that day,

They would walk in that same comfortable silence back to the castle, sharing the mutual comfort of the bond between father and daughter. There, she might possibly get her mother to answer her questions…

She knew the answers now, indeed, on a later day she would learn not only about the "marriage contract" but the reasons why her family had such enmity for the council for herself.

She sighed, turning towards the window again.

Normally these kinds of memories would have brought a smile to her face, but she knew that she now had a finite supply of moments she could look back on.

Only a collection of memories and images and half remembered conversations now remained to her.

Not memories that would make any sort of history. No, Aria would remember Clef as any other daughter would remember her father.

To her, the titles he had obtained and the way history would remember him were distant ideas, a sort of identity he assumed exactly as he did his robe.

It was the same as when he and her mother stood before Cephiro in the council or presenting her with her new Mage's staff. Yes, it was them, but not the people she knew. Not the man who would lecture her about Cephiran history or sit in the silence under the stars with her. Just a costume he put on for the rest of the world.

That was not, however, all her father was. Not who her father was for both her mother and Aria herself.

These things were all part of him, but far from being integral to what he meant to her.

**End**

# I stole (with permission!) this concept from Milieva and Tolkien as well…I highly recommend both of their works. :)

**A/N:** Thank you to all the people who read and reviewed the first chapter! I'm actually very surprised and pleased with the reader response so far. And, just to let you know I will respond personally to any questions or comments you have (by the way FCelcia, thank you for your PM, it made my day!)…so ask away. I love reader feedback…also, since this is an experimental story, I do have certain points mapped out (some of them are very obvious and some aren't), but if something caught your attention that you want to know more about, tell me and perhaps you will get to see it in a future chapter. Thanks again for reading!


	3. Born to Resist

**Chapter 3: Born to Resist**

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Magic Knight Rayearth or the lyrics to the Foo Fighter's "Best of You." I am merely a poor, starving college student who wants to play with Clamp's lovely world for a while.

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"Everyone's got their chains to break

Holdin' you

Were you born to resist

Or be abused?

Is someone getting the best,

The best,

The best,

Of you?

"Best of You" – The Foo Fighters

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Umi noticed that something was very wrong from the moment he had stepped through the threshold.

The air about his entire being seemed to thicken and throb violently with each passing step toward her…

Clef was angrier that she had seen him in a very long time.

If that didn't immediately arouse an empathetic feeling of indignation from her, the sight that came behind her consort certainly made her blood boil.

Aria walked in at a shuffling pace following a few paces behind her father, her bejeweled head bowed, with a mixture of hurt, confusion, apprehension, and deep sadness painted on her face.

Seeing this, Umi immediately put down the collection of Cephiran folktales that both Clef and Aria had recommended to her and shot a pointed, searching look at her consort. She could feel her whole body stiffen from the grave look he returned her.

After a brief moment had passed, he nodded purposefully to her and, as if a switch had been flipped somewhere, he masked the rage he had been clearly displaying moments before.

Turning to Aria, with one hand, he gently raised her chin, and looked straight into her eyes. He whispered something to her that Umi could not hear.

His little daughter (or so he fondly referred to her as, although she was already a bit taller than his own height. In his mind, however, he would always be the tallest one in the little family.) nodded almost tearfully and then launched herself into his arms for a hug.

Clef, again said something to her in soft measured tones that carried only a feeling of calming to Umi and not the actual content of what was said. For a brief time Aria remained clinging to him while he merely stroked her hair.

Umi could not so much as fathom what would make her usually reserved and serious daughter act in such a way. It made her anger build up all the more.

Quietly, taking on an air of forgotten dignity, although it was still a bit tinged with an aura of melancholy, she pulled away from him, and nodding slowly to her mother, she made her way up to her own quarters.

The practiced, diplomatic mask that Clef had so carefully cultivated in the years in his position fell away and his earlier tenderness dissolved into his previous heavy mood. Now, however, he was not so much enraged ad he was grave.

Umi watched him as he made his way across the remaining distance between them, she was almost afraid to hear just what he had to tell her.

Today was supposed to have been a day of celebration of Aria's promotion to her new apprenticeship.

Something was indeed very wrong.

Clef sat heavily next to her, looking first pensively at his folded hands in his lap. Not yet breaking the silence, Umi merely reached out and silently put her hands on his in a comforting gesture.

After so many years together, she had learned that her direct manner of immediately questioning him sometimes merely kept her from getting any useful answers if he was feeling in a particularly stubborn mood. Silence was sometimes what he needed to gather his thoughts and clearly tell her whatever it was that he needed to.

However unpleasant in may be for him to do so.

Suddenly, he sighed very deeply, shattering the quiet in an ominous manner. He looked at her, the substance of infinite enigmas hidden directly behind his eyes, "Her apprenticeship to me was not approved."

Umi's eyes widened in surprise.

"…Ascot wouldn't approve her?"

He sighed. It was hard to tell if it was because of the power the name still had when she uttered it or that there was something else he knew to be much worse than the old family skeleton.

Long ago, when Aria had been ready to walk the path of a mage, he had explained to her the system that had been in place since time out of mind.

No matter what their status at birth, no one but the Pillar was placed under the tutelage of the Master Mage until they had proven themselves within another apprenticeship. At the time that the apprentice achieved the rank of _Rin_, they would be allowed to take on a new apprenticeship under the Master Mage. In this manner, not only did all manner of students, rather than one's of certain statuses and parentages allowed the honor of being the student under the Guru, but it also guaranteed the quality of the apprentices who came under Clef's tutelage.

Despite Clef's objections, Aria herself, after being given her magic by her father, had also been assigned to a lower ranking master. However, most would argue that her placement with the High Summoner Ascot was nothing to scoff at.

At that time she had assured him that he would be allowed to complete (and he had growled "_refine_" in addition to this) her training at the time Aria reached the rank of _Rin_. She didn't understand why Clef was so intent on changing a system that had been in place for the span of recordable memory simply because, this time, it was his own daughter.

In response he did what he always did when he found he could not win a verbal argument against her – he simply gave a venomous parting remark (in this particular instance it was, "Isn't that what we've already done?") and retreated into the silence of his study.

But, returning to the present moment, Umi knew that there would be no reason for Ascot not to allow her daughter to become a student of her father. Even if some vestige of jealousy still lingered, Ascot simply wasn't the kind of person who would do such a thing.

As if reading her mind and affirming her thoughts Clef responded, "It's not Ascot. He believes she's more than ready."

Her mind reeled, because, if not Ascot, than the only remaining person who had the authority to make the decision was Clef himself…and that was simply apart from all rational sense.

She could feel rage welling up in within her, simply waiting to be released until a target was named.

Having seen that look countless times (as it was usually directed against him), Clef knew exactly what was occurring in the mind of his consort and moved to preempt her.

He took her hand.

"Don't yell, Umi, you know her…she'll be listening. She already thinks that somehow she has done something wrong."

"_She already thinks that she has done something wrong."_

Umi had to work to beat the anger within her down, as if it were a pot almost boiling over, in danger of scalding everything that came within its reach.

Clef, seeing that his words did nothing to calm her, sighed deeply and heavily.

"The council seems to have taken my speech about changing the ancient laws to adapt to the realities of the present to heart. They passed a law that allows them to monitor the changing of apprenticeships from one master to another – _including_ those of the Master Mage. Apparently, they are such a bunch of fools that they are _still_ unable to tell which laws _should_ be changed and which laws have a damned good enough reason not to be."

His words, spoken with a quiet, piercing, intensity, shook Umi. She must have flinched, although any movement was unknown to her, because Clef gripped her hand all the tighter.

Suddenly a fact dawned on her. The image of Aria's face as she had entered, lagging behind her father, swirled in her mind.

She hoped that they didn't have the nerve to do what she thought they had done.

"They said that _in front_ of her, Clef?"

His mask, put on for her benefit, cracked a bit and let an ephemeral bright undertone of fury out into the world. In a moment he had recovered, but his grip on her hand tightened a bit more so that it resembled less of a comforting gesture than it did a man desperately clinging to his last hope of salvation.

His face returned to being an expressionless mask as he answered, "Yes."

In the wake of that answer, she didn't feel as if she would be able to hold her anger in. Abruptly, she resorted to a technique that she hadn't used in years and materialized her sword from the jewel on her glove.

She swiped and stabbed at the air furiously, working out the fury she felt that she would usually just scream at Clef about to cleanse. He looked on, a little stunned by her display, but looking half in love with the idea himself.

After she had continued to stab at some invisible enemy for a lengthy duration, Clef, at some peril to himself finally stood and expertly grabbed her wrist. Sighing, she gave into his insistence that she return to her place on the couch and quietly withdrew her sword into its protective jewel.

She placed her head in her hands.

"Clef, why can't they just leave us alone?"

He measured her mood silently, perhaps hoping that she would not attempt further acts with sword in hand.

"I spoke with them –"

"It's your right anyways, Clef! You shouldn't have to speak with them." Her voice was rising in volume despite her best efforts. "She's your daughter and you are the Master Mage. We've done so much for those ungrateful fools….and they go to every possible extent to preserve the law and then change it on a whim to keep you from taking your right!"

He sighed again, knowing that there was nothing he could say to her to cause her anger to dissipate.

They both understood the system and the ancient laws that had governed it.

Lantis, Zagato, Alcyone, Ascot and countless others had all been chosen and trained under it.

However, as the council had been so good to remind him, the celibacy of the Master Mage was also an aspect of this code.

…and, if that fact was acknowledged, in the minds of the councilmen there was only so much of a legitimate argument anyone could make against their current measures.

What did they care if a legitimate reason existed or not for their actions?

They also both clearly understood the political chess game the council was playing, using Aria as their pawn.

He began explaining the rest of his impassioned conversation with the council to his consort.

"They said that oversight, in this instance, is quite necessary in order to ensure the purity of the system itself. They couldn't have the child of the Master Mage, who apparently blinds everyone to her faults with her birthright, merely rising up to any position on the hems of her parents' robes." He spat the words out as if they were poison, "The fools wouldn't even listen to Ascot's own recommendations nor Ferio's admonitions for changing the law for such a selfish purpose."

Clef looked aged and weary, and for a splinter of a second, his face took on all the weight of all of the years he had lived. He leaned on her shoulder, as if the action would distribute some of the heavy burden he carried.

He knew she would gladly take it if she could.

Drawing in a deep breath, he came to the most aggravating aspect of the day's events.

"Then the arrogant bastards said that they would change their recommendation on one condition – that she prove herself to them."

"Prove herself!" The words exploded out of Umi's mouth like fire pouring forth from the mouth of some craven idol. She could not even help yelling now nor did she attempt to bring down the volume of her disdain, "How is she supposed to do _that_?"

He looked down at his lap.

From many years of experience with the nuances of his gestures, she knew that that simple action was an ominous indicator of the nature of his answer.

"They want to test her skill against a junior councilman. Unaided."

Umi thought that she had heard him wrong, she _must_ have heard him incorrectly. Obtaining, at the very least, the rank of _Ile_ was a base qualification for joining the council. Aria had barely reached the rank of _Rin_ and would still have to achieve two further ranks to be on an equal footing with even the most incompetent junior councilman.

It was impossible. There was simply no way. She must have heard him wrong.

Seeing her grapple with the same demons that he had when he had first heard their pronouncement, he gently stroked her hair.

"Clef," she said quietly, not even at a small fraction of her usual volume, "What are we going to do?"

It was true that she might receive training from Clef and remain Ascot's apprentice in name only. That would mean that her daughter would be saved from their absurd command, but at the same time it would mean that the council had finally won.

And more, they would win by punishing her daughter, who was innocent in all capacities for the bad blood that had developed between the council and Clef and herself.

That made her simply furious.

"Umi," he said, his voice not betraying his inward turmoil, "she wants to do it."

Despite its simplicity and the calm tones that composed it, the simple statement drained the life out of her.

"Clef…no…she can't."

Suddenly he laughed derisively, "They think I'm too busy to oversee my own daughter's training. _They_ don't know _who_ they're dealing with…on either count."

He smiled a little mischievously at her, "Aria is, after all, very much like you and we both know what you do when someone tells you that you can't do something."

Umi had to smile at that comment. _He_ knew very well what happened when someone told her what her own limitations were. Her stubborn daughter wasn't much different.

She smiled angelically at him, "I think she gets that from her father, personally."

He frowned slightly, in mock sadness, the issue of Aria's stubborn tendencies always merited some light hearted banter between them.

"You were right, however," seriousness shown through his features once again. It seemed as if it caused him some effort to say the next part. "Ascot has done well with her. She certainly has the will to do it…she might just be able to."

The "might" still bothered her, however, and she could see that, despite his attempt to mask it, it also bothered Clef.

It was that "might" that made her feel somewhere between helpless and wanting to take Selece to the council meeting in order to quite literal beat some sense into them.

"How long does she have?"

"Only three weeks."

Three weeks to match an _Ile_ at the rank of _Rin._ It still seemed vaguely impossible…but, as she thought about it, no more impossible than three girls from another world battling the most powerful sorcerer in the land.

In the end there were no choices to be made.

"We just have to believe in her, Umi."

It was one of the first things that he had impressed upon all of them when they had mysteriously come here from Tokyo: "In Cephiro, the believing heart is power."

They sat for a long time, lost in the worlds of their own thoughts. Several minutes had slipped by, unnoticed in their quiet gravity.

"Clef," she finally asked, "What did you tell her?"

This time he smiled indulgently.

"I told her we'll always be proud of her no matter what they try to do to her."

Umi still couldn't wrap her mind around it. She knew it would take a while before she could.

"It has nothing to do with her."

Umi's voice was a hollow waif that could very easily have gotten lost in even the smallest clamor.

"I told her that as well."

She sighed and buried her head in the thick robes about his shoulder, hoping that when she opened her eyes, the entire matter would have been one horrific nightmare or something that had gotten so weak that Umi's own will could merely sweep the problem away.

That was how Aria had found both of them much later, sleeping soundly (and "soundly" was quite an appropriate word for her father's snoring) when she had heard the sound of voices stop for an acceptable amount of time.

-----------------------------------------

For the next three weeks, the already tenuous schedule of the Water Knight's wing of the council went out the proverbial window.

Clef, the precious times when he returned from the Palace's assembly rooms from his task of meeting the abnormally high quantity of diplomats that seemed to have all shown up unexpectedly, came back looking exhausted and immediately withdrew to the gardens with Aria for training.

He did not return until very much later and then, usually a restless sleeper, he would drop off into a very deep sleep and did not wake up until the crack of dawn the following morning when he started his exhausting schedule anew.

Meals, which came at intervals of dubious regularity even on what qualified as normal days, came at spotted intervals and she sometimes had to yell and chase Clef down (more literally than she cared to admit) just to make sure he ate something now and then. Aria didn't question her when she came into their practices, but merely chewed what was brought pensively and with little comment.

Other than her nightly sword practice, where Aria was considerably more focused than usual, but laughed less, Umi did not see much of her daughter.

She did not seem unhappy…simply very determined. She did however giggle when Umi told her that if all else failed she could merely stab the councilman.

In that maddening way that time has, when she wished that it would slow down to a crawl it sped up and seemed as difficult to manage as holding water in one's hands is.

If it wasn't for Hikaru and Fuu's constant visits, Umi thought that with Clef and Aria both secretly hiding away from her, lost in their training, she would have taken her sword to the council chambers long ago.

They mainly sat at her table and gossiped about the goings-on in the castle (although careful to stay away from the word _council_ which would certainly cause Umi to fly into a rage) including the latest mayhem of Caldina's two children, Fuu's imitation of one of Ferio's imitations of one of the notoriously obnoxious diplomats, and also quite a few reminiscences of their own past antics.

It was Fuu, however, who finally found a tactful way of broaching the issue of Aria with Umi.

"I do not believe I have seen Aria in these past weeks, but, since she's your daughter Umi, I'm quite sure she's alright."

Umi immediately sighed. Hikaru and Fuu exchanged a knowing glance, knowing that their friend was about to explode with the force of a tsunami.

"I wouldn't even know. Clef and her spend all their time hiding from me in the gardens. Even when I go in there they just shoo me away as if I'm in the way of their grand plan or something and I barely see either of them but, at the same time I'm just hoping my only child doesn't get _killed_ so its not exactly as if I can yell at either of them! Now who I'd like to give an ugly piece of my mind to-"

"Umi," said Fuu calmly, cutting her friend off before she could _really_ work herself into a frenzy, "You don't need their permission to see how Aria is doing."

She looked indignant.

"I told you that Clef just pushes me out-"

Hikaru had figured out what Fuu was saying and mirrored her mischievous grin.

"Ya know Umi, we don't have to ask him anyways."

For a moment she could do nothing but stare at the both of them, realization slowly dawning in her eyes. The same smile finally lit up her lips. She had been letting the seriousness of the past few weeks get the best of her…when had she ever obeyed Clef so easily, anyways?

Laughing, as they had in junior high, they began their nefarious mission.

How on Cephiro Hikaru had found the passage into the garden or how Fuu could so easily dismantle Clef's carefully placed wards, Umi would have to find out later, but somehow the three found themselves perched on a wall, with a view of Aria and Clef only slightly obscured by a very large stand of shrubbery.

They all leaned in, straining their ears to catch small bits and pieces of what was being said. Finally being able to fixate on the sonorous thread of Clef's voice, Umi felt a wave of nostalgia wash over her.

"Focus and listen to the words within you. I know you know them, Aria, but know their substance and texture. Focus it slowly into the heart of your staff."

Umi had heard the same words herself when he was finally at leisure to properly (he has emphasized the _properly_ before Umi could so much could even protest) teach her how to control and use her magic.

She had always had raw talent and raw will, but Clef had taught her how to hone it and refine it into something even more powerful.

Belatedly wondering if the same memories were going through his head as well, she listened more.

She had to keep moving forward when Clef moved farther away, pacing as he always did when teaching his students, and caught his next set of instructions "…any type of ice magic takes a much higher degree of focus. Don't tell your mother this," Umi's ears perked up at this segue and Fuu and Hikaru immediately held her back just in case, "But you should have less of a problem than her concentrating."

Umi apparently missed the joking tone of his voice. Aria however, caught it and immediately continued on in the same way that the family had for years.

"You better hope she never hears you say that!"

Aria gave her father a severe look, reminiscent of Umi's own dissatisfied expression.

"She'll kill you, you know and as you very well know, I may plead ignorance or simply realize that there is no way a simple _Rin_ like me could possibly beat a magic knight…"

Clef gave her a bemused look. "Oh, we should both know that when your mother hits her stride…well, Pillar help the world. But you," he gave a truly mischievous look to his daughter, "you have _my_ sense of concentration."

Aria simply rolled her eyes at him, far too used to her parents squabbling over her in this same manner.

Her mother, however, did not take such comments so nonchalantly, Hikaru and Fuu were straining merely to keep even a very tenuous hold on her.

Meanwhile, Aria had raised her staff and was preparing to start the spell.

At that very moment, Hikaru and Fuu's grip broke and Umi raced out with the speed of one of the bullet trains that had brought her to school in her youth, crying "CLEF!"

The guiltiest expression that had ever, in all his long years, graced the Master Mage's face appeared as Umi charged near him, Fuu and Hikaru sprawled on the ground behind her in her wake…and she continued to charge…with her sword in hand.

"Aria!" He shouted, "Shield spell!"

Aria merely looked at him, completely dumbstruck. After recovering from the initial shock of her mother leaping down off a garden wall and running at her, she looked at her father and merely shrugged in a silent intonation of, "I warned you."

There wasn't time to concentrate on anything due to the piercing volume of Umi's enraged cries.

"You sneak off so you can tell her things like _that!_ Is that why you didn't want me to see what you were doing you short pervert?"

Clef, however, was not known for his subservience…quite the contrary…his stubborn reputation rivaled that of his consort's.

However, there _was_ the matter of the sword in her hand to deal with.

Clef however, was at that moment far more interested in getting even with Umi verbally.

"You don't appear to trust us enough to leave us alone!"

"Now I know that your trust means that you poison my daughter's mind against her own mother, you short old pervert!"

"Well it isn't as if you can train her _properly_!"

Well, at least that answered Umi's earlier question.

Fuu and Hikaru merely looked on, used to such interactions by now. However, they hoped that this time it would not come to the use of spells. That seldom turned out to be very pretty.

Aria looked on, a vaguely annoyed look on her face. After a moment of merely observing the squabble, Fuu noticed that she attempted to cough in a manner that looked so much like Clef that she had to stifle a laugh. She tried once again to diplomatically gain the attention of her parents in the same manner.

Fuu doubted that they could even hear the delicate noise over their screaming.

They were indeed busy scuffling – Umi's blade grinding against the handle of Clef's staff and a series of escalating insults being traded between the two.

Now, Hikaru and Fuu could see that Aria was fast going into what they called "Umi Mode." In a moment, the situation would not be very pretty, indeed.

Loosing her normally calm demeanor, she planted her hands squarely on her hips and it looked as if the rash personality that her mother had won a reputation for (and that her father had more or less tried to hide from more public view) would gush out.

Stamping her foot and readying her own staff, Aria did something few people in Cephiro would really dare – she took on the Master Mage and a Magic Knight all at once.

With a cry of "PARENTS!" she leaped in as if to smack them both upon the heads.

At that moment they seemed to recall exactly _why_ they were squabbling. Clef attempted to regain his aura of dignity and give her a chastising look for Aria's impertinence, Umi however kept her dagger like eyes upon him. It was obvious to both the Knight of Fire and Knight of Wind that Clef was struggling to maintain his serious composure in the midst of that expression…it was too well ingrained in his nature to at least _attempt_ to fight back.

Fuu and Hikaru exchanged a knowing look between them. They were, however, not surprised by any of the antics of the bunch.

Indeed, sometimes it seemed like the entire castle knew exactly how those three acted.

-----------------------------------------

Aria entered alone, stepping silently to the middle of the platform surrounded by an intricate network of waterfalls.

She knew that her mother would be seated at the top with both of her aunts. The box in which the Magic Knights sat was encircled by a small ring of gold, so it was unmistakable.

However, she had no clue where her father was amidst all the water-obscured grottos, nor did she so much as shift her focus to an attempt to find either of her parents at that moment.

She was very conscious of being alone.

All of the council's eyes were upon her and she merely hoped that her nervousness was not nearly as transparent as she thought it was. The long skirt of her formal robes billowed behind her, and she became very conscious of the blue and gold of her robes, the distinguishing mark of _Rin_, amidst the hints of black and gold denoting the rank of _Ile_ that lingered just beyond the water's opaque surface.

She walked directly up the chairman of the council, a man named Marduk. She bowed deeply and formally, the jewels of her robes tinkling and seeming to echo in the profound silence she found herself faced with.

He began the proceedings.

"_Rin_ Aria, daughter of the Dragon Princess and Guru Clef, you have come here today to petition to overturn our ruling regarding your apprenticeship."

There was not a single note of apprehension or fear in her voice as she answered with a clear and ringing, "Yes," she paused a little bit and Marduk looked as if he would go on, but she added, "I have come to regain the right that was falsely taken from me."

She wondered briefly if her father would disapprove. He had explicitly told her not to say such things. Aria, had of course, not given him a definite affirmation that she would follow his request. It wasn't lying in _that_ respect.

Around her, voices gossiped in low, throbbing tones in the wake of her comment. For an ephemeral moment she thought as if she had heard a solitary clap from the Magic Knight's box. Perhaps it was merely her imagination. Meanwhile, the chairman regarded her with a look of contempt.

"It has been decided that you shall be allow to choose your opponent for yourself, _Rin_."

She nodded, but there was a stiffness and haughty dignity as she did so.

In a loud voice, with a tone that sounded as if it were delivering a prophecy of condemnation unto the body assembled, she called, "Those in the committee who judged me unworthy of advancement, please step forward."

Another murmur rippled throughout the hall in the wake of the pronouncement of the Guru's daughter. Even among the junior councilmen, she had been long known to be enigmatically dangerous, although the reason was never directly revealed. She seemed to at least be proving that she was a force to be reckoned with today.

However, in all the sleepless nights of the past three weeks she had been contemplating this speech. The men who had put her in her current position would thereby be recognized, and if she won and proved them to be unequivocally wrong, their influence and competence in future matters would fall into question.

As young as she was, the political games that were being played were not lost upon her. She would show them that she was just as capable of such games...indeed, Aria could beat them.

But…if she were to lose the consequences of her actions would be more severe…

She did not linger upon this thought; she merely smiled as a number of the waterfalls opened up revealing a number of mages, all clad in the ornaments of multiple apprenticeships, as well as at least two Palus.

She regarded all of them. The Palus she did not so much as consider. Two of the others she also discarded immediately. They both had a long trailing pennant with a jewel with a golden crown embroidered on top of it – the mark of students of her own father. Aria knew that she had no need for masochism in an already difficult battle. Two others, she knew, were wind mages…a very difficult element to effectively counter with her own specialties.

That left three. After another short moment she was left with two whom she knew to possess the correct magical element and also came from a Master that was widely considered (well, at least considered by her father) to be a rather sub par instructor.

Considering the choice before her for a fraction of a second more, she pointed to one, sharply. He looked vaguely queasy.

"You have seen it fit to judge me, now we shall see if you yourselves are capable judges."

The low murmurs took on a bit more animation and a scattered quality of anger. In all, as the junior councilman made his way down to the center, it almost sounded as if a thunderstorm was drawing closer and closer to her.

It gave her a bit of satisfaction to feel the tenuous feeling of discomfort invade the council room.

The man arrived and produced his staff. She could tell instinctively that he had not advanced enough for it to have fully evolved yet. He bowed very shallowly, barely inclining his head for the sake of politeness. He clearly saw the girl before her as someone beneath his rank.

She impudently returned the same gesture as if she were his equal. Touching the jewel at the center of her necklace, her formal robes vanished into the armor and simple tunic of the outfit she wore primarily for dueling.

After an eternity, Marduk signaled the start of the bout, gliding swiftly into the bottom most alcove and was subsequently swallowed by the water. For a moment she thought she saw her father's white robe in the same space, but did not allow herself to focus on it in the slightest.

This was her own battle. She must prove that she herself was worth it.

The man immediately leaped up and out of the way.

This was a fortuitous sign for Aria. One could always tell the caliber of mages by their initial movements.

Simply put, the stiller they stayed the more skillful they were.

She had seen her father take down enormous monsters with a nonchalant flick of his index finger and a single spell word (and often this was mispronounced just slightly…but she did not _dare_ to question her father in his professional capacity.)

Her opponent resembled a slightly frightened rabbit, preemptively dodging from here to there when she had not so much as even uttered a single spell.

Very quietly she muttered a phrase.

A bolt of lightning, very narrowly dodged, whizzed down beside the young councilman. He looked slightly surprised that a simple _Rin_ would have any command whatsoever of such a difficult spell.

It was well known that storms were not a natural occurrence in Cephiro and thus, such spells ranked very near the highest level of difficulty.

Aria, however had not only listened to her mother's stories of storms in her homeland, but had lived amidst the storm of her parents for her entire life. The difference was negligible in her own opinion.

But she still remained cautious – the single spell, even should it have hit, would not have caused much damage and her focus in producing it had been imperfect.

No matter how clever she could be, there was still a very noticeable skill gap. She knew it would only be accentuated as the time went by.

Meanwhile, the man countered back, sending a lighting spell of greater intensity her way. It was time to put her three weeks of intensive training to good use.

"Shield!" She shouted, and she was immediately surrounded by the faint golden halo of the spell she was the best at.

If she had not been so concentrated on the work at hand, perhaps she would have heard the small noise of approval that drifted around the chamber.

Her opponent, a councilman named Tiamat, was by specialty a mage who was in the process of mastering lightning spells.

Another one came her way, this time she leaped out to dodge, cushioning her fall with a simple wind spell.

The slow, macabre dance between the two began to speed up considerably for the audience, as flecks of gold were traded between them.

To Aria, however, everything seemed sluggish. She knew what she needed to accomplish, but she was also infinitely aware that she did not have even half the magical stamina that her opponent did. Tiamat was at least 400 years older than her and, it was a severe understatement to say that he had had more time to cultivate his energy. Her youth would indeed work as a grave disadvantage in this aspect.

She needed to buy herself some time so she could proceed with her plan.

After dodging a succession of attacks and shielding herself by turns, she made her way to the middle of the council floor.

Hoping that he would make the mistake of Tiamat believing she was making the mistake of becoming an easy target. He took the bait, unleashing an attack of the greatest intensity yet.

Taking a page from her mother's book (she had seen it in a particularly silly and elongated fight between her parents) she called forth a water spell. Rather than blocking the attack, it dispersed it and the bolt of lightning spread out like a shimmering curtain, utterly obscuring Aria from her opponent in a shower of electricity.

The battle had been going on for at least twenty minutes by now and she could feel her heart pounding and her breathing becoming more labored. She prayed her magical stamina would hold out….especially since she had the more difficult steps were still to come.

Using the brief window of opportunity she had she grasped her staff firmly in both hands and held it straight and erect before her.

"Creature summon!"

Firenza was called from the jewel held in the tiny hands of her staff's little fairy. She jumped onto the Leviathan's back and held on for dear life, knowing that the intensity needed to sustain the creature's materialization would sap her energy at triple the rate that she had been through the simple exercise of her arsenal of spells.

Amazed that a person of her rank had acquired such a powerful creature, the assembled audience gasped. The notion that a mistake had been made was already beginning to form in the minds of the more impartial members of the council.

Aria, once more, did not have the energy to notice or contemplate anything but the task at hand.

She needed to land two more spells. Only two more.

But she was running out of time. The world was already swimming before her.

Firenza's speed made Aria a difficult to target and, directing her friend to fly, as swiftly as he was capable of going, she was able to get behind Tiamat's guard. She then, seemingly at random, made a complicated maneuver of both recalling the creature and diving off of it all at once. In the moment in which her opponent was both processing her seemingly rash action a then trying to track her movement, she swung her staff out and performed the most complicated water elemental spell she had.

Her aim, for the first time during the battle, was true.

While it did not overly hamper the _Ile_, it did succeed in sweeping him a short distance along the floor and interrupting his concentration for a precious few moments.

Those were enough. Holding the gleaming staff high, she fairly yelled out the phrase, all traces of dignity forgotten in her exhaustion. The spell landed a small distance off…by design.

She knew that they thought she was not skilled and she was indeed hoping that Tiamat took her apparent blunder as a mark of that.

He was again off balance, though, and in the moment of his hesitation she sent another lightning spell straight at him with all of the rest of the intensity she was capable of mustering.

The water he was already doused with was a valuable ally. It intensified the already strong attack to a strength well above what her level was capable of, even when she was at her fullest strength.

He crouched, defeated. And by a girl two ranks below him, no less. She had won, not perhaps by superior skill but by dint of superior intellect and dumb luck.

Unfortunately, even as she saw him fall, the swimming world in front of her had become a torrent of pitch…she had used far more magic than she had ever thought she was capable of.

Aria could feel herself falling and falling and falling, but she just merely sank down and never hit. With her last conscious thought she hoped Tiamat did not get back up.

-----------------------------------------

Clef, from his stance next to Marduk, could see Aria collapse. And despite his protestations parted the waterfall and ran to her.

A number of people, including Umi and the other Magic Knights, had also spilled out of their boxes in the wake of the unexpected ending.

But, despite the movement, there was no uproar of sound. Instead, an eerie silence permeated through every nook of the massive room and all eyes seemed to be on him as he ran.

Not even he himself had thought that the battle could last so long. But he had been proud of her nonetheless.

But even his pride in her faded in the wake of the sight before him. Now, for the second time in his life he found himself scared out of his wits and in a dead run. Aria was sprawled grotesquely on the smooth stone floor, her breathing shallow and labored. She was drenched in sweat from head to toe, and her staff lay where it had clattered noisily some time before. He hadn't heard it. He immediately crouched beside her and rested her head in his lap.

She was in even worse condition than he himself had been in during Cephiro's slow collapse. His little daughter was simply not advanced enough, even for all her confidence, to use magic so extensively. She was too young.

Umi had finally made her way down and looked at him wildly. He slowly picked Aria up and walked away. Umi, walking beside him, brushed the hair gently from her eyes.

He might have made a speech condemning their rash action and exposing their hypocrisy and vengeance…but he didn't feel as if he had to. The old argument had finally been set to rest. The council could not legitimately do more without exposing their own hypocrisy.

Aria had given them all the proof they needed.

**End**

**A/N:** This was a hulking monolith of a chapter…and one that wasn't even in the original outline. But I had a lot of fun writing it….people weren't just standing around. And if you're wondering why Clef is suddenly alive when he died at the beginning…this is your reminder of the non-linear nature of the fic…it is moving backwards. Yes, I'm still crazy. Also, same applies to this chapter…if something caught your eye that you want to know more about, simply let me know…perhaps I can work it into another chapter (perhaps it will become an entirely other chapter…who knows.)

Also, because I am not a fan of copious physical description, there are some (read: not so good, kinda small) sketches on my lj of Aria. The link is in my profile and it should be only a few posts down.

Thanks for reading! Send me all comments, assertations, dissertations, acclamations, declamations, etc. etc. They will be received with _love!_


	4. Thy Mother's Glass

**Chapter 4: Thy Mother's Glass**

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Magic Knight Rayearth or the lyrics to the William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 3." Besides…the Bard is public domain. I am merely a poor, starving college student who wants to play with Clamp's lovely world for a while.

-----------------------------------------

"Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee

Calls back the lovely April of her prime:

So though through windows of thy age shall see

Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.

Thou if thou live, remember'd not to be.

Die single, and thine image dies with thee.

"Sonnet 3" – William Shakespeare

-----------------------------------------

In truth, she had no intention of causing anyone any trouble. She had not been _hiding_ at all.

Aria had no idea that anyone was even looking for her…she had known that Mother had put on the long flowing robes that she only wore for special, _adult_ events. Father…well, he looked the same…but he had that serious look that clearly said that he had no time to play with her at the moment.

But Aria was used to this. Having such famous parents (not that she had, at this age, any notion of exactly _how_ famous they were. She only had a simple idea that they were perhaps very important) meant that she was sometimes left alone to amuse herself.

That was when she came here.

From the outside, it didn't look like anything that would be amusing to a child of her age…it was simply her mother's wardrobe.

She knew each and every one of the elaborate ceremonial robes her mother wore. Her Mother always looked like a lovely princess…but that sort of fantasy didn't hold any interest for her. Even the elaborate armored plates and large jewels and gold embroidery didn't manage to attract her attention.

No.

It was the secret in the _back_ that interested her the most.

_Those_ outfits she had never seen her Mother wear.

And it was no wonder, really. Taking them down she noticed that the fabric was flimsy and itchy…hardly useful for battle or magic or _anything_.

But nonetheless, there was something slightly…well, _magical_, about them.

The style of the clothing was also decidedly foreign. The underskirt was short (although it was decidedly long on Aria's childish frame) and the accompanying jacket literally swallowed her. Aria had no idea what the shiny round objects were on the plain, weirdly patterned undershirt…nor did she know what the purpose of the red ribbon that came with it was.

She tied it on one of her braids and moved to the front where her mother's mirror hung on the door and admired the strange outfit on her in the hazy light slanting in from the doors.

Twirling around, Aria wondered if that was what it was supposed to look like…but in the midst of her twirls, she heard a rather disconcerting sound…

Her father's voice.

To be accurate, her father's _angry_ voice…calling _her_ name.

Completely forgetting what she was wearing, she rushed out in the direction of his shouting. The very last thing that she wanted to do was make him _more_ angry.

If only she could think of something _important_ and _adult_ that she had been doing…maybe then he would not lecture her (because she knew that he liked to give very _long_ lectures…and he got very annoyed with her when she yawned and then accused her of not caring about whatever topic he was lecturing on…and at that point Mother usually had to save her).

She tried desperately to make up a question about Cephiran history…or the meaning of a big word she could pretend to have read in one of the books Father was always bringing her…he liked it when she did that.

And Mother thought it was boring…hopefully Mother wasn't with him. She would yawn and make a comment and then her father would give her that _look_ and then there was no telling what would happen.

But it certainly was always noisy.

Most of those times Aria would simply look at both her parents, sigh and then return to her book or playing by herself…sometimes she would simply leave altogether and find her aunt Hikaru, who would promptly laugh at them both with her.

(Although Mother had told her more than once that she shouldn't leave without telling one of them and gave her one of her _looks_ when Aria tried to tell her it was rather difficult to do so.)

So, it would make things much easier for her if her mother was mercifully absent…

Aria knew, even at her young age, that her parents were much easier to handle separately…because she was never sure what they would do together. Although sometimes they started fighting each other and they forgot all about anything _she_ had done.

That was not, however, the case today.

"Aria!" She could hear her father shout again…he was getting _angrier_.

And he very rarely shouted at her to begin with. It must be the adult event. It was the most logical explanation.

She tried running faster…settling on a big word she had seen…but as she rounded the corner she found that her clever plan was unfortunately dashed.

Not only was her mother there…and _she_ never appreciated her "encouraging" her father…but Caldina was there as well…and Caldina did _not_ like the games she played with her father.

In fact, whenever she asked questions like that, Caldina would call her father a "young-looking old geezer" and tell him that "Aria has you all figured out."

It was true…Caldina (who was the only person besides her aunts that she was allowed to refer to without a proper title…because she had _yelled _at her father for teaching her to address her in that manner) never was as easy to distract as her parents.

And her son, Alero, had told Aria that it was very scary to see her get angry.

Aria did not want to see someone who could get away with yelling at her father (well, besides her mother…but that was nothing unusual) get angry with her.

But…Caldina's presence with her father meant that it would be much more difficult to trick him into not being annoyed with her.

But to Aria's surprise, as she ran towards the group, her mother and Caldina began _laughing_…and Father, well, he sighed and put his hand on his forehead in that same gesture that he always made when Aria yawned during his lectures about Cephiran history.

Then it dawned on her.

She was still wearing the strange clothing from the back of her mother's closet.

Caldina immediately hugged her…one of those hugs that made Aria feel as if she was still being hugged in some manner by a nefarious Shadow Caldina for a week afterwards.

"See Clef…she was just hidin' and playin' dress-up."

Mother was still laughing…and Aria thought her father was now getting annoyed with _her_. Maybe his annoyance had just spread.

He looked critically from her to Caldina.

"So I'm supposed to explain to the _entire council_" he gave great weight to those words and tried to affect a withering look at the both of them, "that we are late because my daughter decided to play with my consort's wardrobe?"

"Clef…they'll understand…" choked out Umi amidst her laughter, "It's not exactly like the fact you have a daughter is a secret to them…they'll have to give you a few excuses."

Umi patted Aria on the head, fingering the red bow on one of her braids. Caldina gave her another constrictive hug.

And her father sighed.

Aria did not understand the problem. Now they were talking about _adult_ things.

Then a question occurred to her…she extricated herself from Caldina's iron grip and walked over to her father, sliding the shirt off and holding it out to him.

"What kind of battle is this good for?" Aria asked, putting her most serious expression on her face.

He looked rather surprised before smiling at her.

But, instead of answering her question as he usually did, he turned back to her mother who had once more begun to laugh inexplicably.

"Are you going to call me a pervert _now_?"

Her mother was laughing too hard to even begin to answer him. Indeed, Aria thought that at any moment she might begin rolling on the floor.

_Pervert?_

Was this some sort of adult joke?

It was a decidedly foreign word to her. She made a mental note to ask her father what it meant next time she needed to take his attention away from something else. At least it would be easy to think of if she needed a plan quickly.

Suddenly, however, her father seemed to remember that they were already running late.

Leaning down to her he told her, "Your mother can tell you all about those clothes later on…right now your game has made us very late."

Saying this, he wagged his finger at her in a mock serious fashion, but ended smiling at her again before assuming his serious adult function expression once again.

Mother kissed her very warmly on the cheek and ruffled her hair (Aria hated when she did that) and told her to behave for Caldina.

She promised that she would, as usual, and they left.

Her mother was still laughing quietly some distance away, her father grumbling half-heartedly beside her. This, as always, made Aria smile…secretively and quietly…

In fact, she merely stayed in the entrance hall, watching them as they receded down the long hall, looking so strong and powerful in spite of the mixture of complaint and mirth that echoed on the castle's walls.

One day she hoped she would be half of what they were…perhaps minus the protracted arguments…

But that was merely a part of who they were. It was like her own private secret…a thing only she could love.

And she did love both of them dearly.

----------------------------------------------------

It never ceased to amaze Caldina how serious that girl could be…there, looking absolutely ridiculous in the school uniform that her mother had worn on her very first visit to Cephiro, watching her parents walk away.

Compared to her on children – who always managed to not only make mischief, but mischief of the loudest and most disruptive kind – Aria had the behavior of the Pillar…

…or simply the demeanor of her father, the Master Mage.

Indeed, the more she slipped deep into the mysterious world of her own thoughts the more Caldina thought she resembled her father in one of his more serious moods.

But it was simply _creepy_ to see a child who was _actually_ the age she looked (un-like that young-looking old geezer) behave like that.

In fact, the little girl was so concentrated on whatever thoughts were going through her head that Aria didn't even notice as Caldina crept over to her and actually spoke.

"Aria-chan," she said loudly, adopting the name Umi and her other aunts called her (for Caldina considered herself Aria's aunt as well), "If you don't change out of that cute lil' outfit of your mom's, then Mira is gonna go crazy watching Alero and Chevelle alone."

She looked vaguely startled at the sound of her voice and quickly nodded, a mischievous smile forming on her lips….she must have been remembering the _last_ time that Caldina had left her children alone with Mira for too long…

…well, the entire castle remembered when the large polka-dotted monster (an illusion that Chevelle had somehow managed to conjure up with a little imaginative input by Alero) had tried to chase down one of the head councilmen…until it was finally stopped by Clef himself.

Caldina winked at her, and was greeted by a rare sly smile that confirmed the fact that Aria did indeed remember the incident well.

Even though she did not break down laughing as she did the first time Caldina had told her about it, Aria still thought it was funny. Caldina knew that laughing about it in front of Clef was rather risky lest Aria be forced to sit through another lecture concerning proper conduct and magical responsibility, not to mention respect…

…The very thought made Caldina want to yawn…

Without needing another incentive, Aria had rushed away, yelling her apologies down the hall as she went.

She came back rather fast, breathing hard. The red hair ribbon was still attached to her braid.

Laughing again, Caldina pulled it off and carefully admired the embroidery on the new tunic she was wearing.

"Did'ja get that lovely outfit from your mom?" Caldina asked.

Aria made a face.

"No…this one is from Father…Mother bought me a different one, but I can only wear that one when she is around."

Caldina looked confused.

"It's kinda like…" She pointed at Caldina's current ensemble, "I think it's from Chizeta."

Caldina was slowly catching on.

"Father says I should wear things like this and not things like…" at a loss for an example, she pointed to Caldina again, "well, _that_."

That Old Geezer.

"But," she said, putting a little fist to her mouth thoughtfully, "Mother says that _she_ used to wear clothes like that…and I didn't understand what Father said to her."

"And what did he say to her?"

"That was exactly the problem."

Caldina couldn't help but laugh as Aria looked on, completely mystified by her reaction.

"Caldina." she said sulkily, "You're gonna explain, right?"

She was still choking with laughter as she responded, "That is something you'll have to ask your father….when you are older…much, much older…and gently, so ya don't kill the old man."

Aria's face took on a serious caste once again as she nodded quite solemnly.

Caldina laughed all the more as she took her small hand and walked towards the gardens…where she wasn't sure _what_ fresh catastrophe awaited her.

"And Caldina…" she said probingly, as they walked, "What's a 'pervert'?"

The laughter was almost deadly…when she had once more contained herself, she simply said, "That is something you should definitely ask your father."

Seeing nothing wrong with such advice, Aria nodded her head and thanked her with all the naivety of a child.

----------------------------------------------------

When they had returned back to the gardens, they found that the catastrophe wasn't nearly as major as it could have been.

Mira was chased into a corner by a strange looking ice demon, and instead of the Head Councilman, Chevelle and Alero had only found a simple scullery maid to chase around in circles with a great winged monstrosity.

However, neither of them looked terribly strained. Alero was lying back on a branch of a tree in the corner, swinging his legs nonchalantly and twirling one finger around lazily to produce a wind spell to levitate a leaf.

Chevelle, however, looked a tad bit less lazy, as she was spinning the complex movements of the illusion spell with her arms but with a dull, rather bored look in her eyes.

"Chevelle! Alero!" said Caldina in a deathly quiet voice that somehow made itself perfectly clear, "Just you wait tonight when your father sees you!"

The words, or perhaps merely their tone, acted as the magic words to make the illusionary monsters vanish, freeing the hapless scullery maid, who then ran screaming from the gardens as fast as her legs would carry her, and Mira who merely looked fatigued and deeply annoyed.

Perhaps Aria would have gotten a very clear display of Caldina's feared temper if a small voice hadn't inadvertently diffused the tension between mother and mischief-makers. From off behind a rather dense crop of bushes a small feminine voice asked, "Mira…is it alright for us to come out now?"

Throwing a rather sour look at Alero and Chevelle who were attempting (almost successfully) to look completely innocent of any wrong doing, Mira called, "It's safe now if you like, Mariko!"

Caldina saw Aria's face light up at a girl with a short curly bob, a little more than a year older than her, emerged from the bushes clasping the hand of a small boy with one hand and carrying a thick tome in the other. Losing all trace of her former serious demeanor she ran towards the newcomers with a look of delight.

"Aunt Fuu sent you and Starion here as well, Mariko?"

The small boy didn't pay much attention to Aria's arrival and looked very much like he would rather be sleeping still. Indeed, despite his small size he was able to muster a rather large yawn.

"Did you bring your gem? I know Master Ascot doesn't like you to…" It was meant to be a whisper, but Caldina had extensive training uncovering the secrets of her own children. And neither Mariko nor Aria had had the extensive practice that they had.

Aria grinned conspiratorially at her and touched her necklace in a way she must have thought was very sneaky. Mariko giggled, putting a small hand over her mouth to cover the noise.

Caldina smiled and pretended not to notice that the two girls were breaking the rules…Mira evidently knew that expression quite well too, because she quietly exited leaving Caldina alone with all of the children. Mira couldn't be blamed, however, she had already had a trying day.

However, Caldina was simply glad that Aria was doing something that Clef would disapprove of…and for that matter Fuu would be none too thrilled about Mariko's actions as well…but Clef…

She and Umi made it their joint duty to keep Aria from becoming too serious as it had taken a good deal for Clef to become even a little unserious. And really only Umi and Aria could make the geezer act that way.

However, it was slightly unnerving to see both Mariko and Aria collaborating with her own troublemakers.

Caldina rolled her eyes. She hoped no one ever became a serious enemy of those four. No one would know what to do if the full devious potential of that group was unleashed.

Although it was against her better judgment, Caldina took her eyes off of them for brief moment to pick up Starion and put him somewhere when he could nap undisturbed by the potential antics of the other children.

Because the Pillar knew…_something_ was bound to happen.

Not even five minutes had elapsed when, while she was gently covering the sleepy boy, she nearly jumped out of her skin due to the combination of a large popping noise and a good deal of water rushing about.

Shaking her head, Caldina returned to the place at which she had last seen them and found them drenched to the bone with mystified and mock innocent expressions upon their faces.

However, there was a deep undertone of satisfaction behind the angelic looks that assured Caldina that it would be a very long day yet.

----------------------------------------------------

One by one all of the other children came and left.

Lafarga, who shook his head as Caldina related the story of the children's newest act of mischief to him and then gave the two culprits a steely look that would have silenced the Creator himself, forcibly escorted off Chevelle and Alero.

Prince Ferio had come to carry the slumbering Starion off with Mariko in tow, smiling broadly at Aria for the day's accomplishments (they had managed one lightning spell each…barely more than a spark, but they were rather proud of their acts of magical subterfuge nonetheless). Had Aria been paying attention to Ferio, however, she would have noticed the rather roguish grin to grace his features as he saw her slip the necklace that held her staff slyly into the inner picket of her skirt.

He also informed Caldina and Aria that the Master Mage and his consort had been held up by official business and had both promised to hurry as soon back as soon as possible.

So Aria found herself alone with Caldina once again.

And the little girl, for all she sometimes acted like her rather serious father, did have the irritability her mother was famous for deeply ingrained in her.

Caldina had to take evasive measures before she adopted Umi's mouth.

Kneeling down in front of her she said, "I think I'm gonna tell you a story."

Aria's face immediately brightened.

Caldina winked, seeing that her plan was having its desired effect. Indeed, she briefly thought about how nice it was to be with a child where illusions or small and mysterious explosions going off at random intervals were not a concern…however much she did love her lil' rascals.

Together they ticked off the different stories that she had already heard…the story of her parent's first meeting (conveniently leaving out the accusations of perversion), Hikaru's becoming the Pillar, a few dozen Chizetan fairy tales…

Finally, Aria, with all the innocence a child is capable of asked, "Tell me about me. How am I here?"

Caldina balked temporarily, thinking of something imaginative and vague to tell her.

The Old Geezer should definitely be the one to explain that. Or Umi.

_Anyone _but her.

But she was saved by dint of Aria's own curiosity….well _saved_ was a relative term.

"Why don't I have a brother or sister like everyone else?"

How did one explain to a child so young how birth worked on Cephiro? How did she explain how much of a danger to Umi Aria's own birth had been?

She sighed and did what she did best.

Caldina danced.

In fact, she danced straight around the heart of the question.

Abandoning her attempt to find a story, she sat Aria on her lap and said, "Even if ya are the only one, Lil' Miss, you're the most precious thing those two rowdy parents of yours have."

Caldina let her go and saw that she had taken on her serious demeanor again.

But she decided she would let it be for just this one time.

After a while she asked, "Can you tell me about the icky djinns again…? That story is funny."

However, before the spell could be woven by the magic words "once upon a time," a delicate cough could be heard.

Aria's face immediately lit up in a smile and she climbed off of Caldina's lap and ran in the direction of the familiar sound before suddenly getting lost in a flurry of heavy robes as she rushed at her father.

Clef returned the hug, albeit a little self-consciously, as he saw Caldina witnessing the moment.

_That Young-looking old man will probably never get used to not looking so invincible in public_.

It was hard for even the Master Mage to maintain his aura of power when a little girl had for all intents and purposes attached herself to his robes and continued on babbling about the day's events (carefully leaving out any references to magic, however).

Suddenly, she stood back and, with her hands on her hips, asked where her mother was.

Playfully chiding his daughter's less than respectful tone he explained that her mother had stayed to speak with her aunts.

Placated, Aria grabbed his hand a bid a hasty farewell to Caldina, pulling the Guru of Cephiro along in a most undignified fashion.

Caldina barely managed to stifle her laughter.

But the smile on his face at seeing his daughter let anyone who knew him personally, even casually, know that this source of embarrassment and discomfort was also one of his most precious sources of joy.

Although Caldina had dodged one question, she had given Aria an answer to one she did not know how to ask.

She watched the pair walk off, hand in hand, and faintly heard Aria ask, in a tone suffused with curiosity, "Father, what exactly is a 'pervert'?"

Simply imagining Clef sputtering at that bit of inquisitiveness sent Caldina into such violent laughing spasms that she swore, at that very moment, that she might not survive.

**End**

**A/N:** This will most likely be the last Aria-centric chapter…since this moves backwards, soon she won't appear at all, so this is my one last bit of character development. Also, I wanted to give everyone a little bit of a glimpse as to what is going on in the lives of the other characters…even if they are only implied hints. So I hope you enjoyed it. I promise the next chapter will be pretty much solely centered on Umi and Clef and their relationship dynamic. And I've had the next chapter planned out for a very long time, so I am excited about writing it.

Again, I do personally respond to all comments I receive, so if you have questions and concerns or just want to say "hi!" or tell me what particular aspects you liked or didn't (or you might even have seen an idea that you want to see developed further and if you let me know you might get your wish), please let me know. Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!


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